When these pretty oaths had been sworn, and while Mrs. Miles was too ill to keep her eyes upon them or to separate them, of course the two lovers were much together. For whispering words of love, for swearing oaths, for sweet kisses and looking into each other’s eyes, a few minutes now and again will give ample opportunities. The long hours of the day and night were passed by Bessy with her aunt; but there were short moments, heavenly moments, which sufficed to lift her off the earth into an Elysium of joy. His love for her was so perfect, so assured! “In a matter such{129} as this,” he said in his fondly serious air, “my mother can have no right to interfere¹ with me.”

“But with me she may,” said Bessy, foreseeing in the midst of her Paradise the storm which would surely come.

“Why should she wish to do so? Why should she not allow me to make myself happy in the only way in which it is possible?” There was such an ecstacy of bliss² coming from such words as these, such a perfection of the feeling of mutual³ love, that she could not but be exalted⁴ to the heavens, although she knew that the storm would surely come. If her love would make him happy, then, then, surely he should be happy. “Of course she has given up her idea about that parson,” he said.

“I fear she has not, Philip.”

“It seems to me too monstrous⁵ that any human being should go to work and settle whom two other human beings are to marry.”

“There was never a possibility of that.”

“She told me it was to be so.”

“It never could have been,” said Bessy with great emphasis. “Not even for her, much as I love her—not even for her to whom I owe everything—could I consent to marry a man I did not love. But——”

“But what?”

“I do not know how I shall answer her when she bids me give you up. Oh, my love, how shall I answer her?”

Then he told her at considerable length what was{130} the answer which he thought should in such circumstances be made to his mother. Bessy was to declare that nothing could alter her intentions, that her own happiness and that of her lover depended on her firmness, and that they two did, in fact, intend to have their own way in this matter sooner or later. Bessy, as she heard the lesson, made no direct reply, but she knew too well that it could be of no service to her. All that it would be possible for her to say, when the

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